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THE EXAMINATION OF a bear bone that lay in a cardboard box at the National Museum of Ireland for nearly 100 years could lead to the re-writing of Irish history.
The remarkable archaeological discovery was originally found in a Co Clare cave by scientists, and has pushed back the date of human existence in Ireland by 2,500 years.
Radiocarbon dating of the butchered brown bear bone has established that humans were on the island of Ireland some 12,500 years ago.
The discovery was made by Dr Marion Dowd, an archaeologist at IT Sligo, and Dr Ruth Carden, a research associate with the National Museum of Ireland.
The adult bear bone was one of thousands of bones originally discovered in Alice and Gwendoline Cave, Co Clare in 1903 by a team of scientists.
“A whole new chapter to Irish history”
Since the 1970s, the oldest evidence of human occupation on the island of Ireland has been at Mount Sandel in Co Derry, with the site dated at 8,000 BC. This is in the Mesolithic period.
“We know humans have been in Ireland for 10,000 years,” Dr Dowd told TheJournal.ie. “If we compare that to Britain, people have been in Britain for 750,000 years so there is a massive difference, and archaeologists have always felt there might be something earlier in Ireland but we haven’t been able to prove it until now.”
These paleolithic people would have been hunter-gatherers who lived in small nomadic groups. They were throughout Europe during the paleolithic era.
“This doesn’t happen too often in anyone’s career,” said Dowd. “It’s really exciting, it’s really superb, especially as an archaeologist – this is the kind of thing as a student you learn: ‘Oh, there were no Irish paleolithic people’, so it’s kind of overwhelming really to find [this] evidence.”
Dr Ruth Carden said: “From a zoological point of view, this is very exciting, since up to now we have not factored in a possible ‘human-dimension’ when we are studying patterns of colonisation and local extinctions of species to Ireland.
This paper [published by Carden and Dowd this weekend] should generate a lot of discussion within the zoological research world and it’s time to start thinking outside the box… or even dismantling it entirely!
Dowd said that this discovery is the starting point, and means there is “a whole new chapter to Irish history, to the history of humans in Ireland”.
The next steps
She said the next steps will include looking at older collections and re-examining them, re-excavating sites and excavating soil deposits at the cave where the bear bones were found.
“There are fabulous collections in the National Museum that haven’t been looked at in decades or over a century, particularly material in caves,” she said.
She added that Carden has been re-analysing bones, which is turning up new information.
“It’s not just about finding new sites, it’s looking with fresh eyes and scientific technology,” she said. “The team who found the bear patella in 1903, they were top scientists at the time. They mentioned in their report about this bear patella and about the cut marks but they had no idea of radiocarbon back then.”
“My mind went blank”
When she got the first email back with a radiocarbon date, Dowd was shocked. “I think my mind went blank – it was quite overwhelming,” she recalled.
She said they “really needed to interrogate the evidence” because what it was suggesting was so groundbreaking, and so sent it on to be radiocarbon dated again.
Dowd and Carden’s paper on the discovery was published over the weekend in the international scientific journal Quaternary Science Reviews (QSR).
In 2010 and 2011 Carden was re-analysing its animal bone collections from early cave excavations. She came across the bear bone and documented it along with many other bones.
Dowd became interested in the butchered bear patella and, together with Carden, the pair sought funding from the Royal Irish Academy for radiocarbon dating. This was carried out by the Chrono Centre at Queen’s University Belfast.
“When a Palaeolithic date was returned, it came as quite a shock. Here we had evidence of someone butchering a brown bear carcass and cutting through the knee probably to extract the tendons. Yes, we expected a prehistoric date, but the Palaeolithic result took us completely by surprise,” said Dowd.
A second sample was sent to the University of Oxford for radiocarbon dating to test the validity of the initial result. Both dates indicated human butchery of the bear about 12,500 years ago.
The bone was then sent to three bone specialists for independent analysis of the cut marks: Dr Jill Cook at the British Museum in London; Professor Terry O’Connor at the University of York and Professor Alice Choyke at the Central European University in Hungary.
The experts were unaware of the radiocarbon dating results prior to their examinations but all determined that the cut marks were made on fresh bone, confirming that the cut marks were of the same date as the patella, and therefore that humans were in Ireland during the Palaeolithic period.
“This made sense as the location of the marks spoke of someone trying to cut through the tough knee joint, perhaps someone who was inexperienced,” explains Dowd.
In their repeated attempts, they left seven marks on the bone surface. The implement used would probably have been something like a long flint blade.
The bone was in fresh condition meaning that people were carrying out activities in the immediate vicinity – possibly butchering a bear inside the cave or at the cave entrance.
Nigel T Monaghan, Keeper, Natural History Division of the National Museum of Ireland said: “The National Museum of Ireland – Natural History, holds collections of approximately two million specimens, all are available for research and we never know what may emerge.”
Dr Dowd and Dr Carden are now hoping to get funding to carry out further analysis of other material recovered during the 1903 excavations, the cave itself and other potential cave sites around the country.
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Never mind humans! We had bloody bears!!
I think there were bears here until the last ice age
Yes Niall, and big ‘terrible lizards’ roamed the earth too!!!
And I recall an article some months ago showing DNA links from polar bears back to the Irish bears.
Dermot 12,500 years ago would be when the last Ice Age was coming to an end in Ireland. As the snow and ice retreated northwards, humans followed the thaw from central and southern Europe. Ireland was still connected to Britain at this point, as was Britain to mainland Europe. Over the centuries, as the ice melted as the sea rose, Ireland became an island about 8,700 years ago, as the last land bridges between here and Scotland were washed over. Creatures like snakes and voles hadn’t migrated here by then, unfortunately for them. Britain didn’t become an island until a couple of millennium later, hence they have snakes.
There were brown bears in Ireland up until 3000 years ago. We also had wolves in Ireland until 1786. We had so many wolves in fact at one point, that Ireland was often called Wolfland.
The last wolf in Ireland was shot on Mount Leinster : (
Sign the petition to rename Ireland to Wolfland, also to rename Mount Leinster to Dinosaur Mountain.
https://www.change.org/p/change-the-name-of-ireland-to-wolfland-and-mount-leinster-to-dinosaur-mt
Aren’t we glad they are gone now!
“Black bears rarely attack. But here’s the thing. Sometimes they do. All bears are agile, cunning and immensely strong, and they are always hungry. If they want to kill you and eat you, they can, and pretty much whenever they want. That doesn’t happen often, but – and here is the absolutely salient point – once would be enough.”
Bill Bryson – A walk in the woods.
Don’t be silly. The Earth is only 6000 years old.
Well said niall. How does a bone form a bare proof that humans were in Ireland 12500 years ago? is the bare suposed to of evolved into people????!!! It says in the Bible that the world is only 6000 years old thats good enough for me
The bear was butchered the article says. There were butchers in Ireland too back then it would appear.
I don’t know if you’re being sarcastic but the Earth is not 6,000 years old! If it was newgrange wouldn’t have been built! The earth is 6.5 MILLION years old
It’s called evolution you idiot! And people existed way before civilisation and religion! Newgrange is 6,000 years old, older than Stonehenge and the pyramids
I’m pretty sure you’re joking rafer, but in case you’re not, it doesn’t say that in the bible
The Universe is about 15 billion years old and Earth roughly 6.5 billion years old.
I’m 25 anyway.
Meant 4 and a half billion. Still very old.
If humans have been in Britain for 750000 years, it’s a pretty safe bet they’ve been in Ireland for a similar length of time.
Weren’t those homo heidelbergiensis, an earlier sub-species and very likely an earlier migration?
I think that’s meant to be 7,500 years. Homo Sapiens evolved about 150,000 years ago and did not migrate from Africa until about 60,000 years ago.
Yes but neanderthals are considered members of the human race, the earliest human was Lucy, and she’s about six million years old.
Yeah, now EDL members.
Nearly right Jamie, if ‘homo’ is in the name of the species then it’s a type of human, e.g. homo neanderthalensis, homo sapiens, etc. but Lucy was of a species further back on our evolutionary branch, she was an australopithecus afarensis and lived about 4 million years ago.
And Shane, Ireland was buried under ice and uninhabitable, that’s why parts of Britain have been inhabited for much longer than anywhere in Ireland.
Homo Erectus. Upright man. Upstanding individual.
I think there’s a bit of cave-person in all of us.
This article only tells the bear bones of the story!
Next thing we will be paying bear tax.
Don’t be an idiot. Only the bears pay the bear tax.
And let them! I pay the Homer Tax!
Surely they’ll find further evidence to suggest we were here even longer than just those 12500 years.
Will I have to resit the leaving cert history exam
When did the Sligo bear go to Clare and why?
Lisdoonvarna one September maybe!
Maybe we just forgot. Must have been some session back in the day
How dare these “”"scientists”"” question the word of God. These false bones must be destroyed.
Ha ha Niall, you should have been born with paddles instead of hands, the better to stir the sh***
[And should it be the case that you're actually in earnest Niall, then feck off ye mad yoke ye]
Cheers for that article Dermot
Me Da told me we were all Welsh men who couldn’t swim after the sea rushed in and separated us from Britain ;-D
That makes no sense.
6.5 billion? I still learned 4 to 5 billion in school, seems I’ve got to catch up on some reading
Bear bone discovery in Co. CLARE.
The O Hara”s will be happy to learn this¬
Why would the O’Haras be happy? Not critical of your comment, just interested.
O Hara is, ‘of the bear’! Means they’ve been around for even longer.
http://abundanthope.net/pages/Political_Information_43/The-Irish-Origins-of-Civilization-The-Servants-of-Truth-Druidic-Traditions-and-Influence-Explored.shtml this is an interesting take on Irish history
Back then, 12,000 years ago, sea levels were about 120m lower, imagine what civilizations were lost as the sea rose and how hard it will be to find these lost civilizations. At the time of Newgrange the Boyne River would have flowed way out into what is now the Irish Sea, who knows if there is a lost city there yet to be discovered?
LOL.
Showing yer age there!
That’s dinosaurs. The earth is over 4.5 Billion years old.
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